By IANS,
New Delhi : Accusing the central and the West Bengal governments, and the railway ministry of indulging in a blame game over Friday’s train tragedy for electoral gains, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) Sunday demanded that the prime minister institute an impartial inquiry into the accident.
“The prime minister must intervene to institute a thorough and impartial inquiry into the incident, ensure prompt relief and rescue work and instruct the ministers to desist from passing judgement till a proper inquiry reveals the cause and sequence of events,” BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said here.
He said the central and state governments have not been able to establish the cause of accident so far in which over 140 people lost their lives.
“While the home minister referred to ‘sabotage’ as the reason for the tragedy, the railway minister referred to gelatin sticks and TNT having been discovered from the site,” Javadekar said, adding “the central government, railway ministry and the state government are busy blaming one another for the tragedy, whose brunt is being borne by the common people.”
Javadekar charged the Congress, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and the Trinamool Congress with trying to reap political mileage from the tragedy for electoral gains during the civic elections in West Bengal.
“Their energies appear to be concentrated only on shifting the blame and shirking the responsibility,” he said, adding the central and state governments should put aside their political differences to ensure a coordinated response.
Suspected Maoists derailed coaches of Mumbai-bound Gyaneshwari Express early Friday, leading to a collision with a goods train in West Midnapore district of West Bengal. The rescue workers extricated 142 bodies from the accident site by Sunday, while three injured died in a hospital, raising the toll to 145.